Ecuador expects UK to give Assange safe passage

After the announcement made by Sweden to drop rape charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Ecuador expects the United Kingdom to give him a safe pass to leave the Ecuadorian embassy where he has been holed up since 2012.

“The European arrest warrant against Mr. Assange is not valid. We expect the United Kingdom to give him a safe pass as soon as possible,” published Friday Ecuador’s foreign minister Guillaume Long on his Twitter account.

Through the social network, the diplomat also commented “Ecuador welcomes the decision to drop charges against Julian Assange. This is due to proceedings in the embassy in London in November 2016. In spite of Ecuador’s persistence, the Swedish prosecutor delayed it for four years which was totally unnecessary. Since Ecuador granted Mr. Assange asylum in 2012, we said it was urgent to carry out proceedings in our embassy. Ecuador has always been clear in its decision to fully cooperate with Swedish officials. Ecuador has criticized many times unjustified delays. On this matter, we sent a letter to Sweden on May 8.”

Sweden dropped Friday the rape probe against the WikiLeaks founder. Such decision puts an end to the Australian hacker’s long legal battle who did not hesitate in publishing a picture of himself smiling on Twitter.

Julian Assange’s lawyer said Friday that such decision of Swedish officials to drop rape charges against his client is “the end of a nightmare.”

In a statement published before a press conference in Stockholm at noon, Swedish prosecutors announced that “Sweden's director of public prosecution Marianne Ny decided to drop rape charges against Julian Assange.”

This represents a victory for the Australian, who has denied accusations against him.

According to Assange, the US is behind Sweden’s accusations since such country wants to prosecute him for having leaked hundreds of thousands of classified military documents and diplomatic cables from the US government.

In 2010, WikiLeaks leaked many secret documents about the war in Afghanistan.